Death, the Ultimate Sarcophagus

We tend to think of death as an “un-presence,” a removal from life and society. But in the ancient world, death was far closer to everyday human experience. It was invasive, and even the care for dead bodies had a closer proximity to life and society than it does now in our Western modern culture. For example, while cremation is widely practiced now, cremation in the ancient was far more public—you could actually see the body consumed by fire and in the open.

 Another way to be buried was to be inhumed. The body would be placed in a sarcophagus, a coffin-like structure. But this structure was not buried. A sarcophagus was a temporary burial place.

In this photo, taken of a 2^nd century Romans arcophagus in the Carlos Museum at Emory University, you can see a gap between the container and lid. This gap would all the corpse to be exposed to air which would allow it to decompose quickly. The corpse would remain in the sarcophagus until all the flesh had disintegrated off the bones. This is why the container is called a sarcophagus, which comes from two Greek words meaning “flesh-eater”(sarx—“flesh” and phagein—"to eat”), because the sarcophagus consumed the flesh off the skeleton. Afterwards, the bones would be removed from the large sarcophagus and placed in a smaller permanent box called an ossuary (also from the Greek word for bone, osteon).

This look at death and burial in the ancient Roman worldhelps us understand some of the language about death and the use of thislanguage in our Bible. After understanding the decomposition and burialprocess, read this verse from 1 Corinthians, where Paul explains the miracle ofresurrection:

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (1 Cor 15:54)

Do you see the irony here? Death has been the one consumed,the thing eaten! The image of death that would be very familiar to most peoplenow is the image of life. While life had always ended in a cold, stone casketand a box of bones, those things are no longer the end but rather the routethrough to new life. Paul’s words create a powerful mental picture of how theentire world and human existence has been turned upside down (or right-side up,more like it) since Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and raised from the dead.

On the sarcophagus in the picture, you can see how this desire for life after or in spite of death was evident in Greco-Roman thought. The lid is decorated with scenes from the story of Remus and Romulus and their story of being rescued from death by a mother wolf. Paraphernalia of the godDionysus invites viewers to think about rebirth. But in observing these depictions, resurrection or rebirth was clearly connected to gods and heroes, not crucified peasants.

Earlier in 1 Cor 15, when Paul declares, “but in fact,Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died”(15:20). In so stating, Paul declares that not only has the ultimatesarcophagus—death—been itself swallowed up in life, but that such miraculouslife is now available to all. Paul has answered God’s query to Ezekiel, “canthese bones yet live?” (Ezek 37:3)